Sharing a bathroom with other people for the first time comes with learning a few unwritten rules along the way. Students who use communal bathrooms share their experiences. 

Olivia Smith, a freshman English major living in Barton, shared the unwritten rules that stand out most to her.

“I would say some important ones are flushing the toilets and keeping the stalls clean because that is a space everyone goes in multiple times a day,” Smith said. 

However, despite these expectations, Smith said reality can be far from ideal. 

“There’s hair everywhere,” Smith said, “Hair everywhere. It’s on the shower walls, it’s all over the sink, it’s in clumps on the floor.” 

The lack of cleanliness often leaves her frustrated. 

“I hate the communal bathrooms,” Smith said. “They flood and there are always bodily fluids on the floor and all over the bathroom.”

In another dorm across campus, freshman Ella Malak, a healthcare management major living in Geoffrey, has noticed similar problems. 

“It is so important to keep water off of the sinks to keep it nice for everyone because everyone uses it,” Malak said. “People have been cutting their hair all over the sinks. They’ve been leaving a lot of dirty tampons in the toilet and flushing them, which clogs the toilets. It’s disgusting.”

Not all experiences are negative, though. Madison Morris, a sophomore environmental science major who previously lived in Wilson, said her dorm’s bathrooms were “overall fine.” 

“They were older bathrooms, but they were cleaned once a day,” Morris said. “I think that everyone on my floor kept to themselves and didn’t bother other people in the bathrooms.”

Now living in her sorority house, Morris said the communal experience feels completely different. 

“The bathrooms are newer and cleaner here, and the overall friendliness is better,” Morris said. “At my dorm, people wouldn’t chat or say hello, but in my house’s communal bathrooms, it is more common to have a friendly conversation.”